Fallacious Pathos

It may seem that I was contradicting myself last week when I pointed out the illogicality of a coined word (at least as its original definition went), then continued to praise a certain logicality of organization in traditional poetry.

Especially since free-verse poets (like me) often sing the praises of nonlinear thinking (and feeling) in the first place.

Superficial logic makes for a poor poem, IMHO. And it rarely has much to do with an organic thing like human language.

My emphasis on a logical outline for fixed-verse poems (did I just coin the term "fixed-verse?" I hereby take credit, until someone shows me otherwise. ;P ) comes from experience, and it mainly applies to the outline itself. I outlined a possible outline for a metaphorical conceit in last week's post.

And that brings me to today's topic, my friends. A rather strange dude named John Ruskin described the issue for all writers in an essay on it called "The Pathetic Fallacy."

I'll let you look this essay up for the details, along with some of Ruskin's other works (His book The Stones of Venice is his best-known.). He's one of those late Victorian writers who could make a prose sentence work like a Liszt sonata.

But for here and now, I'll do my best to sum it up: you fall into pathetic fallacy when you metaphorically give natural forces or objects human feelings, as in something like "the winds weep for grief over lost Lenore."

OK, I don't think that's in "The Raven." I just made it up. Ruskin called the fallacy "pathetic" after the original sense of the word indicating "suffering," as in "experiencing." In your poem, when you have the wind weeping or starlight laughing or some such, you're giving human attributes to inanimate forces.

And that's why I stress a little planning in the "pre-poem" phase of writing fixed-verse poems (I've now decided I hate the term -- so please attribute it to someone else!): it's just so easy to fall flat on your face.

I believe there is an exception (in a manner of speaking) to the pathetic fallacy: it's found somewhere in the distinction between symbolism and allegory.

Maybe I'll get into that someday.